Localvore movement harkens back to grandpa's farm

Jun. 23, 2011

Robert Fuller, longtime restaurateur and Leunig's Bistro co-owner, says one of his first localvore experiences -- before anyone knew what that meant -- was on a dairy farm in western Massachusetts where he helped his father deliver fresh milk in glass bottles to homes every morning. / RYAN MERCER, Free Press

Written by

Robert Fuller

I grew up on a 40-acre dairy farm in western Massachusetts. I have been involved with food production in one form or another my entire life. Food has been a lifelong adventure of discovery for me.

My earliest memories of farm life were quite bucolic. There was a Polish couple across the street who were from the Old World. They chose to do all their farming with horses instead of machines. Watching a team of draft horses turn sod with a two-bottom plow is an impressive display of horsepower. The sound of a horse drawn sickle bar cutter has an oscillating rhythm that is seared into my memory. And watching men pitchfork hay loose on to a wagon and then load it into the barn with a large hayfork suspended from a block and tackle pulled by one of the draft horses.

This is a type of farming that has largely vanished and I am glad to have experienced it when I did. The memories of it are among my most cherished.

My first “job” was riding with my grandfather “Push” (his real name was Warren Fuller) in his 1947 Chevy pickup on his daily milk run. It was circa 1952; I was 5 or 6 at the time. It seemed to me like there were small dairy farms everywhere and we stopped at all of them. These were 15- to 20-cow working farms. Similar to the scale of farming that was happening in Vermont and the rest of New England at that time.

My grandfather would gather milk from these farms into the back of the pickup in 20-quart and 40-quart cans. Back at the dairy I watched the milk as it was poured into a large vat to be pasteurized. The milk was then chilled and bottled in glass. It was caped with paper and cellophane and stored in the giant walk-in cooler. The next day after the milk was pasteurized and bottled, my father and two other drivers delivered the milk to the homes of their customers.

This was localvore then, but we didn’t know it at the time. This business model is what we are trying to turn back toward or perhaps replicate and reinterpret for our time by buying more local farm products.

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Agriculture and the food production systems that evolved since the early ’50s are vastly different than the one I grew up in. In my lifetime it morphed until we were buying our milk in Massachusetts from thousand-cow farms in California!

As the Second World War ended the munitions producers stopped making bombs and ramped up production of chemical-based fertilizers and herbicides. Food production soared and prices remained low. There was lots of food that didn’t cost very much (compared with the rest of the world). Everyone was happy. Not much time was spent thinking about where are food was coming from, or what the real cost was, the effect on the land, the environment and our own health.

Enter the organic food movement now synonymous with the eat-local movement. A hundred years ago all food was organic and overwhelmingly local. We are blessed to live in a small state where we live close to many high-quality food producers. Farmers markets and community supported agriculture models are everywhere; it’s easier now to buy local.

An article in Gourmet Magazine in the 1972 sparked my first interest in locally produced food at the restaurant level. The article was about a highly regarded chef who spent his afternoons visiting small farms in southern Connecticut buying fresh local produce for his restaurant. That resonated with me and I started going out of my way to source local food. In the mid-’70s I became what we now call an early adopter.

There were some bumps in the road. While working in a small French restaurant in Massachusetts, I placed an order with a local farm for 12 Hubbard squash thinking they were similar to acorn squash. We received about 200 pounds. The chef had a good laugh and we returned 10 of them. Some lamb I purchased early on was not the consistent quality needed for a restaurant. There were a few of these mistakes, but overall I have enjoyed working with local producers. In the 1970s, both production reliability and consistency were issues.

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Growers such as Hank and Cecilia Bissell at Lewis Creek Farm, David Miskill at Shelburne Farms, and Jane and Bob Pomykala in Grand Isle were among the first wave of vegetable growers that I worked with who were real pros. Delivering consistent, reliable, high-quality produce all through the growing season. Black River Produce did a great job filling the gaps, buying and distributing local products all around the region. Over the years we have all learned as we worked together to make the system work better. The Vermont Fresh Network was a big leap forward and has been a very important force in the movement. I consider many of these farmers I have worked with to be good friends to this day. We know this is a team effort and we are all partners in it.

The market is constantly evolving. I am especially excited by the interest I see younger people taking in this subject. I believe that understanding the importance of food and all the ripple effects it has in our world is very valuable information to impart to students. There are many excellent young farmers all over the state. People such as Pete Johnson who are forging new models of successful, sustainable farming. Vermont has more beer brewers per capita than any other state. And cheese makers! Alison Hooper (Vermont Butter and Cheese) coined the phrase “Vermont, the Napa Valley of cheese.” The Vermont cheese trail is now advertised in state brochures.

It has been fun and rewarding to be part of this movement. To contribute to the collective effort of creating communities that we are happy to be part of, observing and actively being involved in the process has been a gift to me. I grew up on a dairy farm, graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1971, worked with an apron on and a knife in my hand for more than 25 years. People ask me, “what is your job now?” I like to say my job is to be mindful of all my blessings, to show gratitude and compassion every day.

Robert Fuller co-owns Leunig's Bistro in Burlington and lives in Lincoln with his wife and two cats.